[78-L] Fwd: [ARSCNY] Early European Edison Phonograph Recordings Released

[Michael Biel]

This just came out on the local NYC ARSC list.  I figured all of you 
will be interested in this even if you are not able to go to Patrick's 
presentation.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com

	
Date: 	Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:20:58 -0500
From: 	Gerald_Fabris at nps.gov

	

	



Thomas Edison NHP News Release

For Release: Monday January 30, 2012
Contact: Jerry Fabris
Phone: 973-736-0550 x48

Early European Edison Phonograph Recordings Released

WEST ORANGE, NJ – Today the National Park Service announces the 
first-time release of 12

historic sound recordings made by Thomas Edison’s recording engineer 
Theo Wangemann on

wax cylinders during 1889-1890 in Germany, Austria, Prussia, and France. 
The recordings

include the voices of eminent German historical figures Otto von 
Bismarck and Helmuth

von Moltke, and several performances by important musicians of the 
period. The sounds

are available on-line in MP3-format at:

http://www.nps.gov/edis/photosmultimedia/theo-wangemann-1889-1890-european-recordings.ht 


m.



On Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 12:00 noon, historian Patrick Feaster, 
will present a

one-hour program about the recordings, titled Theo Wangemann: The Man 
Who Made the

Phonograph Musical. This presentation will explore the life and career 
of Theo

Wangemann, who was arguably the world’s first professional recording 
engineer. Also at

the program, collector Stuart H. Miller, M.D. will exhibit the 
phonograph used by

Wangemann in Europe during 1889-1890. The program will be held in the 
Laboratory Complex

at Thomas Edison National Historical Park, 211 Main Street. The entrance 
fee to the park

is $7.00, children under 16 are free. Seating is limited and 
reservations are required.

Reservations can be made by calling 973-736-0550, ext. 89.


Museum Curators first cataloged the damaged wooden box containing the 
wax cylinders in
1957, found in the library of the Edison Laboratory. In 2005, the 
National Park Service
completed a multi-year project to individually catalog every historic 
sound recording in
the museum collection. Curators noted that the box contained 17 brown 
wax cylinders in
fair and poor condition, several broken with large pieces missing. No 
title list or
other identification survived in the box with the recordings, so the 
recordings could
not be identified until they were heard. In 2011, the park's Curator of 
Sound
Recordings digitized 12 of Wangemann's 17 cylinders using a French-made 
Archeophone
cylinder playback machine, saving the audio as Broadcast Wave Format 
files. (Five of the
cylinders could not be digitized due to their condition.) Once the audio 
could be
heard, historians Stephan Puille and Patrick Feaster identified the 
sounds and wrote two
scholarly essays, which are included with the recordings on the Thomas 
Edison National
Historical Park website.

Entrusted by Thomas Edison with the task of applying the newly developed 
wax cylinder
phonograph to music, Theo Wangemann oversaw the first regular production 
of pre-recorded
cylinders at the Edison Laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey in 
1888-89, ushering in
the beginnings of the American musical recording industry. Then, in 
1889-90, Wangemann
played a prominent role in introducing Edison’s invention to continental 
Europe.


---------------------------

Stephan Puille is a conservator of archaeological finds and technical 
employee at the
Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (HTW Berlin) - University 
of Applied
Sciences. For more than ten years he studies the history of sound 
recording from the
beginning up to 1914, holds lectures and writes articles on the subject. 
In addition, he
is a phonograph and phonogram collector who concentrates on early and 
historically
significant items. Contact: Stephan Puille, Hochschule für Technik und 
Wirtschaft
Berlin, Wilhelminenhofstraße 75A, 12459 Berlin, Germany. E-mail:
Stephan.Puille at HTW-Berlin.de <mailto:Stephan.Puille%40HTW-Berlin.de>

Patrick Feaster (pfeaster at gmail.com <mailto:pfeaster%40gmail.com>, 
812-331-0047) is a researcher and educator
specializing in the history and culture of sound media. A co-founder of 
FirstSounds.org
and two-time Grammy nominee, he received his doctorate in Folklore and 
Ethnomusicology
in 2007 from Indiana University Bloomington, where he is currently a 
lecturer in the
Department of Communication and Culture, a member of the Media 
Preservation Initiative,
and an instructor for the School of Continuing Studies.

Thomas Edison National Historical Park is a National Park Service site 
dedicated to
promoting an international understanding and appreciation of the life 
and extraordinary
achievements of Thomas Alva Edison by preserving, protecting, and 
interpreting the
Park’s extensive historic artifact and archive collections at the Edison 
Laboratory
Complex and Glenmont, the Edison family estate. The Visitor Center is 
located at 211
Main Street in West Orange, New Jersey. The Laboratory Complex is open 
Wednesday
through Sunday from 9:00am to 5:00pm. For more information or directions 
please call
973-736-0550 ext. 11 or visit our website at www.nps.gov/edis .

-NPS-


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